While the United Nations declared Tuesday that better drought strategies are needed for the world now suffering the effects of climate change, one company is acknowledging that the crisis is a perfect money making opportunity.

“Climate change is projected to increase the frequency, intensity, and duration of droughts, with impacts on many sectors, in particular food, water, and energy,” said Michel Jarraud, World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Secretary-General. “We need to move away from a piecemeal, crisis-driven approach and develop integrated risk-based national drought policies.”

“The 2010 drought-induced famine in the Greater Horn of Africa, the ongoing crisis in the Sahel region and the extensive drought in the USA show that developing and developed countries alike are vulnerable,” added Luc Gnacadja, Executive Secretary of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). “Effective long-term solutions to mitigate the effects of drought, and address desertification and land degradation urgently need to be mainstreamed in national development plans and policies.”

While droughts have not been limited to the U.S., they have global impacts due to the U.S. role in grain exports, especially corn, and the consequences can be deadly.

"Recent droughts in the mid-western United States threaten to cause global catastrophe," Professor Yaneer Bar-Yam, president of the New England Complex Systems Institute, told Al Jazeera.

While many around the world will see hardship and food insecurity from drought, one business is seeing dollar signs.

Chris Mahoney, director of agricultural products at commodity trading company Glencore, told a conference call on Tuesday that the current drought meant "opportunities" that would be "good for Glencore."
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Wednesday August 22, 2012, 10:33 am
It is typical of corporations to try and reap profit from the suffering of the people. Access to potable water is a basic human right, and that concept should be vocally defended and promoted by everyone who gives a damn about humanity. No one should have sole ownership of water. Corporations shouldn't own it; nations shouldn't own it. Those who thirst should have access..

Wednesday August 22, 2012, 8:36 pm
It's sad, pathetic & just wrong that companies are trying to make profits off people that have little, if anything. That is happening because of corporitism. The corporations are taking over the government, mainly because the right wing are welcoming it so they get a cut too. It needs to stop before they "own" everyone and everything.

Thursday August 23, 2012, 2:27 pm
"director of agricultural products at commodity trading company Glencore, told a conference call on Tuesday that the current drought meant "opportunities" that would be "good for Glencore."
Did Bain Capital re-invent/re-name itself like Blackwater did? *Shudder* Vulture capitalism with actual vultures circling..:(

Thursday August 23, 2012, 6:19 pm
I sure hope this company isn't going to use the "good old fashioned ingenuity and innovation" defense the way some American companies do when they want to justify their bottomfeeding, because there is most definitely a distinction between being innovative and profiting off of the suffering of others like greedmongers do. Unfortunately corporations don't know about that distinction since it's beyond their realm of knowledge. Thanks Kit.

Thursday August 23, 2012, 6:27 pm
new techniques are needed for growing crops. the number one thing that needs to happen is to protect the crops from direct sunlight and heat because with increased temperatures, evaporation is now occurring at an increased 24/7. if possible, then urban or smaller gardens need to be established and they should be established in between the buildings or behind a structure that can provide shade during the hottest times of the day. the gardens should be located near buildings so that gray water can be easily used. and forget about large masses of monoculture crops, especially corn.

Saturday August 25, 2012, 1:39 am
We do need to be highly creative and innovative sooner than later to come up with solutions to these future problems. Money shouldn't have to be part of the equation..other than to help us all, globally, to survive.

Saturday August 25, 2012, 5:29 am
And, typically, crop failure in Eastern Europe is ignored! Is no-one in the US aware of Europe?

Large companies are buying up huge land tracts in Third World countries and this is in advance of the huge climate change/4th Ice Age, increased by global warming, which will continue to see sea levels rise and a reduction in fresh water. We are aware of ice melting in the Arctic and Antartic yet no country is willing to do anything to stop/slow down the problem. Other countries are now using super trawlers to take everything in its path and it destroys entire ecosystems and fails to allow young fish to grow and breed. This is affecting countries, such as the UK, which still fishes with intelligence and care, as well as poorer countries where people rely on the sea to provide their sustenance and way of life. Poisons and contaminants are in the food chain killing people as well as marine life.

Large companies are not just profiteering on land, but on the sea and the governments do nothing. In a few years time, we will be living off rations which we may not be able to afford.

Saturday August 25, 2012, 11:39 am
Others misery is always seen as an opportunity to make extra profits by some. Wars are another example of how greed driven profit has become a cornerstone of free enterprise.

Interesting that Gillian reads this as an article only about the United States. As I have submitted many articles on this topic and this article is about World food crisis, not US or nor just Europe but the World. The US does contribute vast amounts of food to countries hit most often by food crisis, this drought and many coming droughts will mean that all countries need to re-think farming techniques, use the natural ability of soils for both growth of food and their ability to absorb C02. I don't believe any one here would dispute the ideology of those who now own the majority of lands for growth of food, nor the companies that are contributing to ocean disasters by over fishing. Smaller farms, using organic methods without fertilizers or pesticides that have petrochemicals or toxins are the only way to begin to pull out this crisis. That and adaptation to changing world climates.

Tuesday August 28, 2012, 9:02 pm
This is typical.
Not only has it been long accepted, due to propaganda that Americans particularly have been heavily subjected to, that a corporation's only responsibility is to gaining more profit, (supposedly for shareholders, although CEOs seem to be doing better than pretty much anyone else, as far as I can see,) but that corporations have some right to set self-interested public policy and to be revered using such bizarre concepts as 'job creators', despite their cut-backs on jobs, wages, benefits and protections in the effort to wring every drop of profit from every source.

Now the US is looking at a potential corporate-run state under the GOP, and this military/industrial group of self-interests have interfered in the politics of other countries to suit their own purposes, endangering a world their anti-science/reality-based ideology prevents them from understanding, in the interests of increased power and profit for themselves.

Disaster provides them profit and they lack the capacity to understand that continuing this will also encompass them within disaster, that there is no other world.

And on this very thread, I see someone suggesting that the natural resources of countries should not be their own.

Ask yourself, are you willing to have your own country drained of not only what you but your local ecology requires to survive to sustain another country, and do you feel that you have this right to consent to the perpetual ruination of it for all living things in perpetuity?

And what corporation(s) do you think would profit from the removal of the water from one country to serve another - and at what true cost to all?